One Punch Man S2 – 5 [Martial Arts Tournament]

God damnit OPM. I thought we were past this, I thought we could get along. It was my hope, after these last two episodes, that you could make it. I was wrong. This week OPM disappoints me, and I once again get to go on a rant. Jump in if you dare.

Right off the bat, and I am gonna do this for a few hundred words, let’s talk production. My god, did OPM trip and fall down a ditch this week. There’s so much to talk about here, I have to split it into sections. Starting off, animation. Not only was it limited, reusing it in the same god damn fight, but what little good OPM had was covered up. Flashing screens, cut to black with flashes of light and shaky cam ruin whatever punch any of the fights could have had. Combine that with terrible direction, ruining the flow of blows, and it just becomes a mess. One redditor described it aptly as “The fight wanted itself to end”. Then there’s Metal Knight, flying around like a static image through the sky. This sequence could have been amazing and instead we got… a PowerPoint presentation.

It even sounds like a PowerPoint presentation! The sounds effects and sound direction was just terrible this week. I don’t’ think I have heard sound effects this bad since Berserk 2016/17. Not only were the effects themselves terrible, fitting the terrible animation, but the talking didn’t sync up. Lip flaps didn’t sync up to talking, it suddenly cut from action music to some kind of sombre tone? It was terrible, just take a look at the monsters this week! They don’t move their mouths! They open when they are talking and close otherwise! On top of all of this, they can’t even do backgrounds right. Cutting to single colors instead of just keeping what is already there. Do they think this adds something to the scenes? The sad part is, JC Staff showed us in this very episode that they can still do it.

JC Staff did have some clips this week that weren’t complete shit. The CGI Centipede was fine, and JC Staff somehow find time to give the BDSM monster some good segments. It’s like they are going purely for fan-service or some crap. Considering the strength of the story so far… I can’t blame them. I’m just bored. Either the writing is getting dragged down by this terrible production, or the writing was never strong enough to survive on its own in the first place. Maybe OPM just can’t handle a single continuous story and handles bigger set piece arcs instead? I just don’t know. I hate that JC Staff has adapted OPM so poorly that it is negatively impacting my love for the original series. They say any press is good press, well let this and Berserk 2016 stand as proof that is a lie.

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So, all in all, incase you haven’t realized it yet this week was shit. Complete shit. JC Staff is falling apart at the seems and I… I can’t write about this anymore, I am so… angry, sad, disappointed? I don’t know. I’ll see you next week for another disaster I suppose.